IPS-English WORLD PRESS FREEDOM DAY-PAKISTAN: Caught Between Taliban and Gov't Date: Wed, 02 May 2007 14:48:21 -0700 Ashfaq Yusufzai PESHAWAR, May 2 (IPS) - Both the federal government and pro-Taliban groups threaten press freedom in Pakistan's largely rural Federally Administered Tribal Area (FATA), along the porous border with Afghanistan. ''Most of the journalists in FATA are extremely worried about their lives. Many have left the profession, some have shifted to districts adjoining FATA,'' said a senior journalist, based in North Waziristan, one of its seven agencies. Requesting anonymity for fear of reprisals, he said he also has a shop where he sells newspapers. ”One day, a group of Taliban rushed to his shop and set alight all the newspapers. They warned me of dire consequences in case anti-Taliban news is reported,” he said. Until recently FATA, which has a population of 3.5 million, had some 168 journalists. But now only a few continue to work openly. For the first time, an embattled Tribal Union of Journalists (TUJ) held its annual election on Apr. 27 at the Peshawar Press Club in the North Western Frontier Province (NWFP). ”We are intentionally not reporting hard news despite being worth-publishing. Reporting truth amounts to embracing harassment and even death,” said another reporter, reporting clandestinely from South Waziristan agency. The media are caught in the ”war on terror” net. FATA has been in the crossfire since late 2001, when following intense bombing operations by the U.S. and its allies in Afghanistan, the Taliban and their al-Qaeda companions crossed into the border areas of Pakistan to set up bases. Pakistani and U.S. soldiers have been hunting for the Islamist militants in the volatile tribal region. Pakistan has deployed 80,000 regular troops to stop infiltration from Afghanistan. Last June, the body of a tribal photo-journalist, Hayatullah Khan Dawar, who went missing seven months before, was found, hands chained, shot from behind, near a village in the restive North Waziristan agency. His family suspected that that he had been picked up by an intelligence agency after he released pictures of parts of U.S. missiles that had killed senior al Qaeda operative Hamza Rabia in North Waziristan on Dec.1. Dawar was the third journalist to be killed in FATA while covering militants' activities and the military operations in the area. In February 2006, masked men in Wana, South Waziristan, gunned down two journalists, Amir Nawab and Allah Noor. No one has claimed responsibility in either case. Secretary-General of Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists (PFUJ), Mazhar Abbas, is immensely disturbed by what he called the pathetic conditions in which the journalists in FATA work. ”It's the constitutional responsibility of the state to safeguard its citizens against hostilities in FATA, interior Sindh and Balochistan,” he told IPS. He said that recently an eight member delegation comprising of the Reporters San Frontiers (RSF) and International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) had been invited to discuss the problems of FATA journalists. ”We met office-bearers of the TUJ and listened to their woes. Later, we issued a statement in which demanded protection of these journalists,” he said. The New York-based media watchdog Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has ranked Pakistan third in order of the most dangerous countries for the press in 2006. ”I have quit my lucrative job with a wire agency after receiving threats. I wanted to continue with my profession but my family members compelled me to give up the job,” said a journalist from South Waziristan, who has since moved to Peshawar, capital of NWFP. According to former chairman of the independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP), Afrasiab Khattak, the government in its efforts to conceal the truth has been browbeating the media. Khattak, who believes it is the government's prime responsibility to protect its citizens, said that he feared that if the current hostile environment for the media in FATA does not improve, there might not be a single independent reporter in the area. ”The federal government in its efforts to publicise stories of its choice has adopted a new modus operandi. They take embedded journalists in helicopters to the safest places and brief them,” said a Wana-based reporter. On the other hand, pro-Taliban groups have issued their own guidelines to the media. On Mar. 14, in FATA's lawless Dara Adamkhel, where police are scared to venture, notices were pasted on the walls in the market warning: ”Reporters working in collaboration with pro-government officials are likely to be killed.” The edict declares that the Taliban are spreading the message of Allah. News against them would be considered blasphemous. ”Both the militants and the law enforcing agencies want FATA journalists to publish news to their liking, which is not just difficult, it is impossible,” commented Ahmad Khan, a local political analyst. ***** +PAKISTAN: Taliban Writ Runs in Border Areas (http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=36896) +AFGHANISTAN: Taliban Executes Freed Italian Scribe's Colleague (http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=37272) (END/IPS/AP/IP/AN/PF/IC/CR/DV/AY/AN/RDR/07) = 05021040 ORP005 NNNN